Roller Coaster Wiki:Manual of Style
This Manual of Style'has been created to give a standard theme to all articles falling under the scope of the Wiki. Editors should familiarize themselves with standard article layouts and templates, and follow when possible these standards, to create a Wiki that is uniform in appearance, and best able to provide needed information. __TOC__ Style Guidelines A wiki with cohesive style in all articles looks more professional, is easier to edit and add information to, and is easier to read, understand, and draw information from. Therefore, these guidelines are established for articles on this Wiki. Articles should: *Be original — not copied from another site. **If it is absolutely necessary to copy from another site, do this only if the site's licensing allows this, such as a CC-BY-SA licence. All terms of the licence must be complied with; in the case of CC-BY-SA, for example, this means acknowledging the source, such as by adding a tag to the top of the page. **If the other site is another MediaWiki site (such as Wikipedia), copy the original MediaWiki markup — this not only gives better results than converting the rendered HTML back to MediaWiki, it is also quicker and easier. *Follow naming conventions - Generally, only the first word of a title is capitalized, while subsequent words are lowercase. Exceptions exist when article titles are proper nouns (such as Kings Island or Kingda Ka). Articles that do not adhere to this convention may be renamed (moved) so that it does. :*Rule of Thumb: If the words for an article title are written in a sentence, and they are not capitalized, then the title itself should not be capitalized (except the first word). *Have a logical structure - Navigation in an Article should be common-sense and understandable, and should present information in an orderly fashion. *Have some images - Images that illustrate the topic of a page are essential, but too many images or images crowded together serve little purpose and distract from the topic of a page. *Be easily readable and easily editable - Articles should avoid complicated or confusing templates or layouts, since these may be difficult for editors to make improvements to. *Have correct spelling and grammar. :*See ''Differences in the English Language below for rules on different grammar and spelling styles. *Be categorized General Article Guidelines These apply to most articles on the wiki. Editors Should... *include templates and guides that help create uniform-looking articles. *add articles to categories that the articles belong in. For example, Top Thrill Dragster should be categorized as a "Launched Roller Coaster" *use good spelling, grammar and punctuation (see ''Differences in the English Language'' below). *add paragraph or section breaks periodically to break up information and avoid a "cluttered" look. *add information to pages in a manner that flows with the rest of the article. *add links in pages to other related subject matter. *promptly remove, fix or address broken (red) links. *add available relevant pictures or images to articles that lack images. *cite facts and information obtained from non-game sources, such as websites, when information is included in an article. Do's and Don'ts Do: *Keep all discussions on the talk pages. *Use the correct pre-made templates for new pages. These can be found by clicking on "Start Your Own Page". Don't: *'''under any circumstances, use an external visual editor (such as Microsoft Word) to edit articles; doing so generates masses of spurious formatting which needlessly inflates the page size, which can wreck the page or crash browsers. If you absolutely must use an external visual editor, first paste the edited text into a plain-text editor such as Notepad, and use that to trim the fluff, before pasting the trimmed version here. *Indicate ownership of an article or page. *Put user/editor names or signatures on an article page. *Use the words 'I', 'My', 'You', or 'Your' unless absolutely necessary. *Use time-relative terms such as "current" or "recently", as these are meaningless without ploughing through the edit history to discover when they were added. On-Ride POVs Please use YouTube videos unless the only POV you can find is on another video-sharing site. Ideal POV The ideal POV: *Should be of the highest video quality possible. **''Don't'' use a "panoramic" video (curved around the edges of the screen) if a regular video is available. *Should feature as little wordmarks and logos as possible. *Show the whole ride, from start to final brake run. **It should also only show the rider POV, with no views of the entire ride etc. *Have the camera mounted on the train. **If a POV like this can't be found, then use one with minimal camera shaking. If you've recorded your own POV **Ask an employee if it's OK to take a video camera onto the ride. **First upload it to YouTube, then use Wikia's "Add a video" tool. **''Don't'' turn the camera around to show your own face. **''Don't'' use foul language. Images Please see Roller Coaster Wiki:Image Policy. Differences in the English Language As an English-language wiki, there is the potential for disagreements regarding the use of certain dialects of English. For example, the difference between American-English and British-English in the spelling of common words (color/colour) or the use of certain phrases not well-known in other English-speaking locations. In cases of mere spelling discrepancies, articles should be made uniform in spelling, but edits should not be made simply to change the spelling of words to reflect an editor's native spelling. However, if a phrase or term is used that is not widely-known in other parts of the English-speaking world, words or phrases that are more universally-understood should be used instead. Roller Coaster or Rollercoaster? The term "roller coaster" should always be spelled with the space in the middle. Please avoid the use of "rollercoaster". This is to help make the wiki more uniform and simpler for everyone. Meters or Metres? The spelling of meters/metres varies depending on where the roller coaster is located. If its country speaks Commonwealth English, then use "metres", all other articles should use American English, because it is the most widely-spoken dialect. Category:Policy Category:Organization Category:Help